Radeon 9500 Pro Battle Sapphire vs. Gigabyte - Page 1

It's game 7 of the World
Series, bottom of the 9th and the winning run is standing
just 90 feet away. Who do you want in the batters
box? You want the best hitter in the league standing
in the batters box ready to rip the cover off the ball.
In video cards these days, that equates to "Built by ATI"
or "Powered by ATI" Radeon 9700 Pro boards. No other
consumer video card on the market right now can move
pixels like a Radeon 9700 Pro. Of course his
little brother isn't too shabby either. We wouldn't
mind him standing in at the plate as well. Why you
ask? Well because the 9500 Pro can deliver almost as
much pixel crunching power as it's bigger brother the 9700
Pro, but at a much lower price point. As PC
enthusiasts. its always nice to have the biggest, best
hardware in the land sitting cozy inside your case.
However, for most of us, money doesn't grow on trees.
The two "Powered by ATI" R9500 Pro cards we have for you
today, are targeted to lure the budget-minded buyer into
their respective corners. Can the R9500 Pro take
over a spot that is held tightly by its main competitor,
the Nvidia GeForce 4 Ti4200? Today we have two
boards vying for that honor, the Gigabyte Maya II R9500
Pro and the Sapphire R9500 Atlantis Pro. Let's take
a look at how they performed on the test bench...

Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine with support for
new Windows® XP GDI extensions

The
Bundles:

GIGABYTE

SAPPHIRE

The Gigabyte
Maya II R9500 Pro shipped with an impressive bundle to say
the least. In addition to the driver CD, the card
shipped with full versions of Serious Sam, Cyberlink
PowerDVD XP, and Rune. It also shipped with "lite"
versions of Oni and 4X4 Evo. Although these aren't
the most popular games available right now, it's always
good to get a few extra goodies, besides the card and some
drivers. Additionally, Gigabyte threw in a DVI-to-15
pin adapter, a composite video cable, an S-Video cable and
a Molex power cable splitter.

The Sapphire's
bundle was a little more spartan. The Sapphire did
not ship with any games, but did come with the full
version of Cyberlink PowerDVD XP, which is arguably the
best DVD playback software on the market today. Also
included was the driver CD. Unlike Gigabyte,
Sapphire failed to throw in the DVI-to-15 pin adapter, but
did have the composite video cable, the S-Video cable and
a Molex power cable splitter. Although we can't
complain about Sapphire's bundle it would have been nice
to get a game thrown into the mix. Since both cards
come in around the same price point it's hard not to side
with Gigabyte because of its generous bundle and the fact
that most people buying this card will be doing so with
gaming in mind.